‘Men, yuh fi check yourself!’
Breast cancer survivor Urel Darlington fights on; wife urges men not to rule themselves out
Published:Wednesday | October 30, 2024 | 12:06 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
On Monday, two years after Urel Darlington believed his breast cancer had gone into remission, it appears to have returned, this time in his other breast. According to the 65-year-old former construction worker, who is now unemployed due to cancer and the only male member of the Jamaica Reach To Recovery (JR2R) breast cancer outreach group, he first felt a lump in his left breast around 2020. Now, he has a lump in his right breast, and samples were taken earlier this week to determine if it is another cancer hotspot.
After feeling the first lump, Darlington waited one year and six months before he found the courage to show it to his doctor during a visit in 2021. He had been seeing this doctor regularly for his blood sugar and diabetes management.
“When the doctor did feel di lump, she put me in a panic state, cause she sent me straight to Apex on Molynes Road [to do a mammogram] and the doctor said, ‘Urel, this looks like cancer’, and I said, ‘Doc, something has to carry me home’,” Urel told Lifestyle.
“She said, ‘No, no, we have treatments for you’, and she sent me back to my doctor,” he added.
Vivienne Darlington, his wife of one year and his partner for 30 years prior, said she always encouraged him to show his doctor, but like many men, he was scared and didn’t think it was important enough to mention during his check-ups.
“Mi see Urel have a lump ina him breast, so mi seh, ‘Man nuffi have lump ina dem breast’, and a several times mi tell him di same thing, and him go doctor because him have sugar and diabetes, so him go doctor every month. While he was going to the doctor, him nuh show the doctor. Yu know man ‘fraid a doctor? When mi ask him, ‘Weh di doctor seh today?’, him seh, ‘Mi never show her’,” Vivienne, who is now passionate about breast cancer, its awareness, and telling the tale much better than Urel shared.
“Eventually him show the doctor and the doctor write a letter gi him and seh, ‘No, dis no feel good’ and send him a Kingston Public Hospital (KPH). When she send him a KPH, dem send him back [to the doctor’s office for a mammogram],” she said.
Urel had to also go to Apex for a biopsy, which was the point in which Vivienne realised that her husband was indeed fighting breast cancer.
“While we up a Apex in Half-Way Tree, mi hear like things nuh good. Mi hear di doctor seh, ‘In five minutes, you’re going to get the letter’. When him seh five minutes for the letter, it leave mi dim. Nothing nuh de ina mi then, because when a doctor is going to give you a letter in five minutes, something wrong.”
They then went back to KPH for his admission and Vivienne was sent to buy “two long needles for $9,000” to do a procedure. After going through the operation for removal and chemotherapy, Urel feels he is now back at stage one and about to go through stress all over again, as he awaits the results of the biopsy he did earlier this week.
Despite everything, Vivienne hopes for her husband to travel to the United Kingdom for better treatment, which she believes will be far superior to what is available in their third-world nation.
“If I could get Urel a visa, I would be so grateful. We hope when he gets this biopsy done, it will be no cancer, but right now, if I could just get him overseas, I would be grateful, because he has relatives overseas who he could stay with and get better treatment.”
In her raw Patois, she urges men, particularly those feeling chest pain, to get a mammogram to help prolong their lives. “Look here, yuh fi check up yourself. You can’t seh you a feel pain every minute so and you not checking. You affi know what is wrong with you.”